Mehdi Hasan’s arguments against Israel’s right to exist fall flat

The widely followed journalist Mehdi Hasan promotes himself as a great debater, who can, as he titled his book, “Win Every Argument.” In a video posted last week, he aimed his purportedly sure-fire technique at Israel, promising to “debunk” what he calls the “bulls— argument” that Israel has a right to exist.

Hasan, a former host on MSNBC and other platforms, and founder of the media company Zeteo, proposes three counterarguments, which range from contrived, to phony, to self-contradictory. Worse, he never confronts the consequence of denying Israel’s right to exist, which would threaten the displacement or death of half the world’s Jewish population. 

Hasan’s first rejoinder raises a question: “Right to exist … Where?” According to Hasan, “Israel is the only country in the world that refuses to define its borders.” That is both untrue and irrelevant. It was Israel’s adversaries who first refused to define the borders. Five Arab nations invaded the nascent Jewish state within hours of Israel’s 1948 declaration of independence. The subsequent armistice agreements included only “demarcation” or cease-fire lines, which Arab states refused to recognize as actual borders.

Moreover, there are many states with unsettled borders. As Hasan surely knows, India and Pakistan are separated in Kashmir by a “line of control,” which neither nation recognizes as its own border. In the Himalayas, India has another border dispute with China, with separation also marked only by a line of control.

But in any case, what difference does “where” make? The uncertainty of Israel’s borders — in part due to historical intransigence by its neighbors; in part due to the occupation of the West Bank and other land — does not turn its right to exist into “bulls—.” The border question camouflages Hasan’s real, if coyly unstated position — that Israel has no right to exist anywhere.

Even more implausibly, Hasan then asserts that states don’t have a “natural or legal right to exist” because only “people have rights, not states.” This simply ignores the fact that Israel was established by law, under a United Nations resolution in 1947.

The structure of international law is premised on sovereignty — the right of each state to govern its own territory and transnational relationships. How does Hasan think votes are cast at the United Nations? How are treaties negotiated and enforced? How is self-defense effectively exercised under the United Nations Charter if states have no rights? 

Although it is not relevant, Hasan then notes that states do sometimes change their composition and borders. He offers the examples of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia, all of which exercised the right to exist until they politically divided into constituent republics.

But note how he cagily omits states that were forcibly dismembered or extinguished. If we are to be consistent, his “no right to exist” theory would logically apply to the Nazi-Soviet partition of Poland in 1939, China’s annexation of Tibet in 1951, Turkey’s seizure of northern Cyprus in 1974, and Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

Of course, Hasan would no doubt condemn such past aggressions. One hopes he would also now reject Vladimir Putin’s rationale for his belligerence — that Ukraine is not a real country — and defend Taiwan’s right to resist absorption by China. But don’t look for consistency here: Hasan’s “no right to exist” principle was invented and intended to apply in practice solely and exclusively to Israel.

Finally, Hasan reaches what he has sometimes called a “showstopper moment.” If Israel has a right to exist, he asks, “Does Palestine have a right to exist?” There’s a short answer and a longer answer; neither supports Hasan’s argument. 

The short answer is yes. The two-state solution has long been the official position of the U.S. and much of the world. In 1977, I co-authored what I believe was the first-ever article in the American Jewish press advocating Palestinian statehood. A majority of Americans, and a majority of American Jews, now say the same thing.

The longer answer is that Palestinians have twice rejected statehood proposals — first in 1947 under U.N. General Assembly Resolution 181, and again in 2000, in the Camp David negotiations led by President Bill Clinton. 

A Palestinian state would not pass either of Hasan’s first two tests — having no borders and no right to exist — but that shouldn’t be a problem, since again, he devised those provisions solely to delegitimize Israel. 

Tragically, President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have rejected the establishment of a Palestinian state. Far from advancing a winning argument, Hasan has played right into their hands.

There is plenty to despise about the Netanyahu government, which has visited death and destruction in Gaza while enabling vigilante raids by racist West Bank settlers. Nonetheless,, attacks on Israel’s existence make compromise and mutual recognition virtually impossible. 

Steven Lubet, the Williams Memorial Professor Emeritus at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, is coauthor of “Modern Trial Advocacy” and many other books on law practice and persuasion.

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